The Quintet's Revival: NECRONOMIDOL Introduce New Members and Reveal Early 2019 Plans

During the later hours of January 13th, 2019, NECRONOMIDOL returned to its quintet status during their sponsored live show, BEYOND vol. 1, held at Shibuya CYCLONE in Tokyo, Japan. With this show, not only were new members were introduced, but announcements for the first quarter of the year were made, marking a busy but entertaining beginning of the year for Japan's ultra-dark Idol group.

Starting with the first announcement, NECRONOMIDOL finally revealed the identities of the newest members to join the group. After much speculation and anticipation, it was revealed that Kunogi Kenbishi and Michelle had joined NECRONOMIDOL, returning the group to its five member formation.

The Assault of Yamaguchi Maho

On January 9th, 2019, news outlets reported that NGT48 member Yamaguchi Maho had allegedly been assaulted by two men in their mid-twenties, both of whom had been arrested. Reports included that the men had assaulted the idol and co-captain of NGT48 outside of her home in Niigata Prefecture on December 8th, grabbing the victim's face. The suspects were both released later on without charge.

Further reports from Maho herself include that her attackers had taken her phone so that she could not alert the police. Maho then revealed that during the police investigation, her attackers revealed the name of another member who may have planned the attack and leaked the members' addresses. Maho explained on her SHOWROOM live, held on Tuesday 8th, 2019, that she could have been killed, that she was too scared to even scream out, and that this could have happened to any other member. Maho's SHOWROOM live was promptly cut off during her discussion regarding the incident.

Further police reports have come in claiming that the attackers only covered Maho's mouth because she began screaming, and that they only wanted to talk to her, and have since denied the assault on Yamaguchi Maho. AKS refused to give a comment on the incident.

On January 9th, 2018 during a live performance, Yamaguchi Maho publicly apologised to everyone for speaking out about the assault, and for causing problems for everyone. Fans promptly cried out 'it isn't your fault!' and 'don't apologise!'. Allegedly, one or both of Maho's attackers were standing in the front row of this performance.

News of the assault has been met with outrage within the overseas idol fan community, and fans have been vocal on Twitter and Facebook regarding the incident.

To Conclude: The Releases Of 2018

Though we have fallen into the realm of 2019, I still want to conclude the year 2018 with my last few posts. So, before I sink into the Year to come and surrender myself to future posts, music and more, let's look back at some of the single and album releases of worth, and even those that are less than worthy from the Year That Was...

Despite already ranking my individual songs of the Year that Was, I did want to take some time out for the Single and Album releases of 2018 as a whole. This means that I will take the full single into consideration - minus the instrumentals - and rank the release as a whole, instead of the just one or two songs, much like I did for the individual rankings.

So, whilst a song might have ranked high or low on the individual songs list - or not at all - means nothing here. I am basing my Single / Album rank on how much I enjoyed the experience of listening to the release, anticipating the next song, etc... as a whole. Likewise, I could still love a song from a certain release but rank the single pretty low or not at all, just because the whole single was a flop in my own eyes.

Basically, the individual rank doesn't matter at this point. All that matters is how much I liked a release in its entirety, start to finish. If it was memorable enough, it will rank, and if it was forgettable... well, that's another part of the list that we will get to quite shortly.

And with that said, it's time to take a look back at the more worthy releases of 2018, at least for my ears. It's time To Conclude: The Releases of 2018. Are you ready to play some music?